Editing Moriori Genocide (section)

== History ==
After members of the Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama tribes were displaced from their homelands in Taranaki during the intertribal Musket Wars, two waves of invaders hijacked a British ship called the ''Lord Rodney'' and headed off from Wellington to the Chatham Islands. Upon arriving on the beaches of Port Hutt, the Moriori welcomed the Māori, to which the invaders murdered a 12-year-old girl and displayed her flesh on posts. After the incident, the Māori invaders declared that the islands were now Māori property and that the Moriori were now vassals. 

During a council at Te Awapatiki, the Moriori debated on whether or not to fight back against the invaders, but the elders convinced them to remain pacifistic in accordance to a peaceful code known as Nunuku's Law, which prohibited violence. However, this only led to more individuals getting killed, cannibalized, and prohibited from marrying to have children. Those who were not killed were enslaved by the Māori invaders, forbidden to speak their native language, and forced to desecrate their sacred sites. Many women and children were staked on the beaches and were left there to die in great pain for several days. The introduction of European diseases also contributed to the Moriori's decline.

Much of the Moriori population was killed and only 100 remained by 1863.